CTV Gets Smarter: James Grant of Equativ on AI, Identity & Outcomes

AdTechGod (0:00)

Welcome to the AdTechGodPod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, AdTechGod.

Welcome to another episode of the AdTechGodPod, where we speak to the leaders in advanced television. With me today is James. James works across some of the most interesting parts of the streaming TV ecosystem, helping develop Equativ's technology and go-to-market strategy across ad serving, server-side ad assertion, supply, and of course, demand. He's also really been at the front row seat to the evolution of TV, having worked at companies like Microsoft, Freewheel, Findcast, Whirl, and of course, now at Equativ. Just a full disclosure to listeners, this is a sponsored episode, but it doesn't change the format and doesn't change the fact that I want to meet James and learn more about what he's doing. James, thank you so much for joining me and thank you for being on the pod.

James Grant (0:53)

Thanks very much for having me. Great to meet you AdTechGod.

AdTechGod (0:55)

Great to meet you as well.

I love the fact that you've worked at such influential companies in the space, Microsoft, Freewheel, part of Comcast company, Findcast, Whirl. You have an impressive background and now you're at Equativ. I would love for you to take the listeners back. I'd love to hear about your background, how you got to where you're at today, then we'll cover some current industry trends as well.

James Grant (1:19)

Sure. Very happy to share. In the UK, we often joke that people fell into advertising. I'm a bit unusual. I chose it because I realized coming out of university, I liked politics and I liked advertising and politics seemed like a very unsexy place at the age of 21, 22

I was a TV buyer for the first five years.

Then in 2002, my boss and I were looking at clips of the Football World Cup, which then was in South Korea and Japan.

And we realized that these clips that we were watching because the time zones didn't match up for us in the UK, that's how our TV content would eventually be delivered. It was going to come out online and it was going to come via IP, not via satellites and aerials. And so after that, I started to reposition myself and then every decision I made around changing jobs or changing companies was, does this fit in this evolution of television coming over IP? I realized I knew nothing about online sales, so I went to Microsoft to learn display and online sales. And we had a really great time there. I don't know if your US listeners will know, but in the UK there was something called Project Kangaroo, and the BBC were trying to build the first online portal. And the guy who ran it, a guy called Ashley Highfield, had moved to Microsoft. And we set up, under his leadership, we set up a small library of TV shows that you could watch on MSN in the UK.

And then from there, I ended up moving across to Freewill for the acquisition by Concast. That was a great place to work, really good culture, a lot of growth. It was a real sort of startup going through a scale up phase. You actually had one of my ex-colleagues, Ying, and she was talking with you.

AdTechGod (3:08)

I've had Doug Knopper as well.

James Grant (3:10)

You have had Doug, yeah. But Ying was talking specifically about the culture and how it was such a learning experience. We all grew so much and there was so much opportunity.

I couldn't have described it any better than that. We had a great time at Freewill. We built out an international business, had loads of different roles, sometimes doing the sales, sometimes managing the clients, helped stand up the advisory team in Europe. That was great. Then I switched back to the agency side at Findcast back to how I wanted to really learn and understand how the agencies were looking at streaming TV, how they were buying it, what they were doing to create a value proposition, go to market. Then I got a really good opportunity with World to work with them prior to the acquisition. That's a super interesting business. Another ex-colleague you have Mikey on, he's a really smart guy, was really great to listen to that podcast. That business sold, and then after that, I moved to Equativ. At Equativ, my role at Equativ is to build out our CTV function, sort of all aspects of it. We have an ad server, we have a server-side ad insertion tech. Obviously, we have a big SSP business, and we also have a big demand-side business. So my role sits behind all of our global sales teams, building out both products, solutions, but also the value proposition go-to-market of our different CTV solutions.